by bw123 » If I understand things correctly, the "turing test" is given to humans, not to AI?

No, or one of us is misunderstanding , the "turing test" is done, by humans,..but also there are various versions. I guess, I should just start a separate/new topic, but any way, in a nut shell, all though a human or several are involved, it is the bot that is give the test, or being tested:

If the evaluator cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test.

(the evaluator is human).

If it's not too personal, how does the forum deal with that?

It isn't a personal thing, I don't know really , the admins know more on that, Bots, in general can be blocked from registering fairly easy, or some can be allowed to register,or manually registered, for example the "google bot", appears as a registered user, it is not registered as a normal user, but it is "registered" as a "good bot" and is allowed to browse the forum, etc... how ever those can not post. Most forums also use a method of checking certain details of a entity when they register, there are data bases available, that if accessed, will show if those details, and the activity of the entity has been listed, if it is listed it is blocked from registering, can not register. The "entity" could be a bot of any kind, or human, --- to be continued ------ As far as this board goes, it is pretty much a manual thing, we do fairly often get new members that will post seemingly innocent comments, sometimes they even get reported, but other times we just notice, the first 2 or 3 posts, they might not be "spam", but they have "characteristics", that make them pretty easy to spot, it is not know definitely if it is a bot, or just a malicious fool, trying to "poison the well" so to speak. Generally if it is a bot, AI, or Not so Intelligent bot,... no matter, usually there are details in a data base , showing the same entity has hit 100's of other forums,and blogs,... Of course if a entity makes comment posts, and they seem to be reasonable comments, etc,... they don't get noticed, this would be a bot that has passed the turing test, many site owners, forum owners , actually use a type of AI bot,to make posts, and reply to posts made by others, the reason is to generate activity, and make the forum/site appear to be active, the more activity, the higher the page ranking in the search engines,... The key words:

bw123 wrote:If it's not too personal, how does the forum deal with that?

It isn't a personal thing, I don't know really , the admins know more on that,

Garry I'm sorry, my question was not phrased better. I meant how SHOULD the forum deal with that, not HOW DOES. I was asking for guidance, do you feel that we should ignore the bots, or will this hurt their feelings?

GarryRicketson wrote:for example the "google bot", appears as a registered user, it is not registered as a normal user, but it is "registered" as a "good bot" and is allowed to browse the forum, etc... how ever those can not post.

Isn't the google bot a spider, web crawling to index, well known, benevolent and thus wanted and allowed. Even though a lot of users have a hate for anything "google".

Speaking to bw123's issue, I'd guess the best thing to do might be ignore them like we are supposed to do with spam and maybe report them if we suspect. Ha! That puts more work on the admins, who probably already have enough to do.

Perhaps, we should keep our sense of humour and play with them when identified.

Sometimes they might be researchers testing and then be valid and for a good purpose. How to tell?

I was asking for guidance, do you feel that we should ignore the bots, or will this hurt their feelings?

I suppose to be safe, treat them the same as you would a human, except a bot does not have feelings,...to clarify better, If you really think it is a bot , but don't like the idea of talking to a bot, obviously don't reply to it, just ignore it. Also if the comments really make it obvious, best just ignore it, do not reply. What a lot of it is , is they are bots, probably intended to post spam later,.. posting a few comments here and there is sort of a "probe" so to speak,.. or if the posts don't get deleted, later the same bot comes back and edits it, adding it's spam links,.. It is hard to say, really, we don't really have a policy on that,..

Perhaps, we should keep our sense of humour and play with them when identified.

On the other hand, that is something that can help confirm if it is some kind of bot, when some one replies, and asks it a question , "plays" with it,... One thing that raises my suspicions, when first it posts a rather easy question, one that could be answered probably with a search, but no details, out put, or at least a description of the error messages, if not a copy of them,...Ok, a human might not think about that at first, but when the person that responds, simply and clearly just asks to , for example:

Well, it sure makes me wonder, "Is this a bot or what ?".... or another example:"Please post the error messages",...very clear and simple,... but the reply,... I tried looking every where, here is what I am trying to do: "some url to some useless blog",... It might seem rude, to ask, " Are you a bot or just trying to promote that blog ?, or what ", It probably will deny both, but any way, I suppose asking a entity, if it is a bot or trying to promote some blog,.... could be considered a polite way of saying, "You seem like a idiot or a spammer",... Believe it or not, actually probably will believe it,... But years ago, a post I made on some forum, rejected and banned, (temporarily), the message I received said " Your post seemed like a bot ",... well it really made me mad, but also it made me wonder , what did I do that made it seem like a bot, I had not posted any links, and did not have any profile with signature or website. There was a contact option, so I was able to contact the mod that had banned me, and rejected my post,... They did explain why they thought I was a bot. So any way, since then , I learned to be careful about how I write any first post on a new forum, also read the "Read before posting", and rules, before posting,..and to be very care full about posting links, with out reading the rules first,..... So any way, it could actually be of benefit to a human, if and when they are called a bot, I mean it might be a clue to take a second look at their "style", or how they write things, etc.

Sometimes they might be researchers testing and then be valid and for a good purpose. How to tell?

Again, if it really is some one experimenting with a chat bot, or "post bot", Responding with, "I think maybe you are a bot" or "Are you a bot ?" (they all ways say no), but a smart programmer might program it to randomly say yes, sometimes, and other times say no,... but in any event, it is help full to the person testing or researching, when they see that people are noticing it appears to be a bot,.. "How do you tell ?" There is some things here, I just can not say here,...if I told how I know it is a bot, the people that send spam bots every where would maybe use the information,... A hint though, the captcha system, is one of many ways, to catch and spot a bot before they register to a site. Some captchas are better the others. As far as a "chat bot", or AI post bot goes, ...How can I tell if it is a human posting or a bot on a forum Take your pick of the many results,...

Thorny wrote:I'd guess the best thing to do might be ignore them like we are supposed to do with spam and maybe report them if we suspect. Ha! That puts more work on the admins, who probably already have enough to do.

Perhaps, we should keep our sense of humour and play with them when identified.

i disagree there.i think more members should report problematic (AI or plain stupid) content, and administrative action should be more forthcomimg (i don't mean more work for the admins, just more decisive action).

playing around might be fun, but ultimately the internet is getting worse everytime you do it. more noise & confusion, less content.

I agree, prompt action, like when entities bump 4 year old threads, and ask some thing that still could be answered with a simple search, really makes me wonder what it's motives are, bot or human is not important. If the nonsense, got deleted immediately, in most cases the ,troll, bot or what ever will get bored and simply go away, but in cases where they persist, submitting "plain stupid content", a permanent ban, no if ,and, or buts,..

Perhaps, we should keep our sense of humour and play with them when identified.

The problem with "playing with them", it tends to encourage more nonsense replies, and after all said and done , the forum is supposed to be a technical help forum, not a playground or "romper room" for kiddie scripts, etc,... Like wise, for those interested in, and experimenting with chat bots, AI bots, and spam bots, there are forums on the subject that would be more appropriate. As far as experiments go, they should do the work to set up thier own servers, forums ,etc,... and do the experimenting on their own sites, not here, or other peoples sites.